All 22 of this year’s class of third year acting students at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School are currently performing their 20 minute solo performances. These are presented in six clusters with three or four solos in each. Over a marathon weekend you can see all of them or you can see two or three clusters on a weekday.

In the past these exercises were based on, grew out of, were inspired by the biography of someone the actor admired, loved or just found intriguing whether he or she was famous or completely unknown. This year, under the guidance of Jade Eriksen, the 22 students, the largest number in the school’s history, have been given a wider, much vaguer brief: how we as New Zealanders express our identity through storytelling.

In the programme each student outlines his or her intentions along with the usual thanks to all those who helped. They range in subject matter from a skater who comes to accept that she isn’t going to be an Olympic competitor to a dreamy exploration of the brief lives of night blooming flowers.

There are some conventionally styled pieces such as the very funny, furiously mimed piece of slapstick about a grumpy taxi driver’s bad day, and a hilarious, Pythonesque sketch that involves the Net, porn, Jesus and God arguing and Jesus eventually being transformed into a coffee mug.

One – with Frankie and Johnnie overtones – is performed entirely in rhyming couplets, while another appears to be the actor simply talking off the top of his head about what concerns him at the moment.

The range of topics and styles of presentation are stimulating. However, even though the performances no doubt change slightly during the two weeks of performance, some of the intentions expressed in the programme don’t seem to be entirely – and one or two not at all – related to what appears on stage and many of the actors have chosen complex emotions and thoughts that would pose problems for Chekhov or Stoppard or one of their ilk.

Maybe the parameters for this drama school exercise, when it is for public display, should be more sharply defined and these parameters should be seen as a challenge to be met and possibly overturned by the rebels in the class and a security blanket for the less bold. After all, it’s a lonely, frightening place up there on the stage for 20 minutes all by oneself.

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The Toi Whakaari Go Solo season comprises 20-minute solos made and performed individually by the school’s 22 third-year students.  These are divided into 6 groupings of 3 or 4 solos apiece, all of which I am pleased to say were, without exception, thoroughly engaging and enjoyable to watch.

In previous years the students have been confined to biographical content.  Now the shackles are thankfully well and truly off, and this year’s offerings are fresh, variegated and represent more accurately the promise contained within this latest, largest batch of Toi graduates.

The performances this year were made under the direction of Jade Eriksen.  The focus was on the audiences’ experience, and the students were provoked with arbitrary groupings of subject matter to encourage deeper exploration of their imaginative process and how it relates to their methods onstage.  Eriksen says on the school’s website “I’m asking… How can we engage the audience? How can we make them integral to the meaning of the piece? How can they feel like it couldn’t happen without them and their prior experiences of the world? What have you always wanted to see or do on stage?”

So, having heroically attended all 22 performances I here present for you my responses, under the following caveat:  This season is the result of a mandatory component of the Toi Whakaari syllabus.  Although the students have made the works themselves, the roles and requirements of the task are not necessarily anything the individuals involved would elect to undertake outside the school.  The students have been encouraged to view their work as an ongoing exploration and many will significantly develop their pieces as the season progresses.  For these reasons I have not reviewed the works in the same way I would an independent and/or commercial production.

Group A

Ahilan Karunarahan excavates gently but profoundly the strata of his own spiritual self, in pursuit of information about a fabled Sri Lankan monk.  The programme notes for Anchorite state that no evidence was found to be presented, but something is still discovered in the process.  The work is subtle and highly symbolic and thus its meanings are elusive, but the poetry and clarity of the performance is beautiful and there is a sense of much deeper beauty to be mined from this vein.

In the dreamlike Conversations with my Grandmothers Evania Vallyon delves into her Hungarian roots.  She opens with a dance sequence, but seems strangely restricted during the main body of the monologue, using her body but through a very limited vocabulary of poses.  Was this a stylistic choice?  The text and vocal delivery has an intuitive, organic feel and the work reveals a wonderful dark side part-way through.

Stephen Townshend, ex-computer programmer, postulates three variant realities over a nice ‘glass of red’.  A Little Bit Strange is an immaculately structured and executed work, one of the standouts of the season, its taut psychological feel relieved by its dry humour and curious physicality.  Townshend gives his themes of anticipation, infinity and death real body and texture.

Colleen Davis‘s collection of sea-shanties, The Seven Seas, is heavily inspired by Tom Waits.  For me it also conjures up shades of Bette Midler and Daniel Johnston.  The self-penned songs are lyrically convincing, traversing a range of emotional tones and providing glimpses into the imagined lives of seafarers and their families.  The performance itself on opening night started shakily, and rhythmically was not tight enough, but Davis’ vocals and presence seemed to grow more assured as the piece progressed. 

Group B

Hollie Weir‘s Three Blind Mice is an out and out comedy number about three copy-writing deskmates.  Like most souls trapped in dead-end jobs, they resent each other and seek escape through computer games.  Somehow – it’s a bit unclear – they find their way into each other’s games and find grudging respect for one another.  Weir does a great technical job of juggling the three roles, and there are some worthy gags, but it’s a slight journey for the effort required to perform it.

Asa Tofete‘s coming of age tale Pie In Your Eye is a warm, entertaining drama in which ‘Pie Boy’ must escape his opera-mad father’s expectations to pursue his love for one of his pie-shop regulars.  There’s a lot of physicality to this piece, and Tofete’s large frame is surprisingly agile and graceful.  The same can be said for his face which is delightfully emotive and sympathetic.  A simple story told with flair.

Bryony Skillington creates an extremely well-judged portrait in Northern Glow: After Party.  Her ‘Northern Girl’ is totally believable and also very funny.  The text is witty and draws the audience into the otherwise very static scenario in front of them, eliciting big laughs from her list of ’10 reasons that cake is good’.  The tone of the work darkens gradually to a simple but brilliant reveal that I can’t believe I didn’t see coming.

Sarita So uses technical elements to great effect in her Digging To Cambodia.  From her first entrance in a sexy red dress the stark visual quality of the piece oozes confidence and strength.  She performs with energy, digging furiously as she talks with a huge spade, and then switching characters with lightning speed to become a very convincing Cambodian cabaret singer.  Slide projections are also skilfully incorporated to give an assured, professional feel to already fascinating material.

Group C

Shaneel Sidal‘s Free Speech is audaciously minimal.  He simply sits cross legged before the audience and rattles off twenty minutes of ‘what’s on his mind’.  No theatrical elements at all, the only variation is his getting to his feet when recounting an anecdote that requires demonstrative gestures.  He held our attention the night I attended, and covers some very topical issues in an accessible manner – nonetheless, a bold and potentially controversial approach.

With Lost For Words… Natano Keni offers us a voyeuristic window into the life of pretty-boy Prince, a failed Romeo whose attempts at finding love over the party line are absurdly stupid, and at times a little confusing.  It’s an endearingly oddball character though, and the gratuitous booty dancing that starts the piece is fun.

Natasha Falconer‘s Specter tells the story of a frumpy checkout chick hitting her thirties and finally staking her claim to a piece of the glamour that has been denied her all her life.  It’s a toned down naturalistic performance that contains a few surprises, the best of which (WARNING!) contains nudity of a delightfully unsalacious nature.  Brave and sweet.

Group D

Natalie Medlock explores the dark absurdism of Buffon with Leonard, an ambitious nightmare of a piece that will certainly mess with many minds.  Her character is a mugging, gasping alien with status issues and obsessive-compulsive tendencies, perhaps a dark past, perhaps trapped on the wrong side of the mirror.  Her eponymous companion, a decapitated springbok, doesn’t seem to have the answers.  Challenging, but also entertaining and performed with confidence.

Antonia Bale‘s Kulture Shok, the tale of a pubescent figure-skater from the Eastern Bloc, deals neatly with her chosen themes of liminal states and the transformative power of failure.  Her character is fun and engaging, and well sustained through a text-heavy middle section.  The pop-culture references throughout give the younger audience members a hook into the story but become cumbersome after a while.

Dan Musgrove interweaves three narratives, all American South-West in flavour, to create the ethical conundrum of The Last Doll.  Clearly told with confidence and broad-stroked characterisation, the work examines the fine print of the ‘contract with the devil’ of folk legend.  The reasons for the use of shoe-polish and the final moments of the piece are a little unclear but overall the performance is taut and strong.

With Susi Saari (Wolf Island), Anya Tate-Manning takes dramatic risks aplenty to create a visceral, haunting and timely performance.  She portrays the survivor of a gruesome rout in a desolate Scandinavian territory, mortally wounded and oozing blood.  She captures very skilfully the fear and wrath of a woman who has had everything taken but will not give up fighting.  A particularly nice touch was the transition from foreign language to English, allowing us to understand without breaking suspension of disbelief.  For its simple, brutal truth, this was the standout presentation of the entire season for me.

Group E

The Others by Maria-Rose MacDonald is a moving, unnerving piece.  Inspired by her own observations of a homeless woman on the streets of Toronto, she offers a beautifully real and nuanced character, and allows us to make our own imaginative guesses about her situation.  Some dangerous teetering and feisty taiaha twirling keep the audience alert and engaged.  A tragic, gutsy performance.

Sophie Roberts‘ Nightbloom goes far from the beaten track with a tale of three nightblooming flowers – a cactus, a tobacco plant and a sorrowful mangled plant whose genus I missed.  Neat characters, great costume and a clearly inventive, poetic approach.  Smokey the Tobacco Plant is more fully realised than the other two, and the best moments are her steely musings on moths and the moon.  A whimsical delight with a lovely visual at the finale.

Matt Whelan makes good use of a loose, lanky body and rubbery face in Moulding Man, a modern-day parable where an office worker is chosen by God to be the decider of the world’s fate.  Great, irreverent humour of the sprightly-but-droll type featured in The Mighty Boosh propels the episodic story into strange tangents and eddies.  A slightly bleak undertone harks back to earlier, darker incarnations of the work, and finally, as it turns out, the future of the world comes down to a single choice – porn, or no porn.  

Ryan Richards‘ Tough Love is a consummately well-observed portrayal of modern adolescent delinquency – topical material that has been the subject matter of several recent plays.  Richards finds a raw and honest emotional throughline for his character and structures his story well to ‘show, not tell’.  Faced with this character’s repugnant behaviour, we first laugh, then we tut-tut, then we sympathise – but the question lingers, how do we judge?

Group F

Sophie Hambleton is a curious spirit in Rudey Trudey, an Irish lass with a romantic fantasy about Paris and what it means to live there.  The performance is pitched delicately but decidedly off-centre.  ‘Trudey’ makes bald and preposterous announcements in the manner of a precocious five-year-old, but also performs an imitation of an upper-crust English Lady that is knowing and sharp, and eyeballs the audience with a piercing glare that shows she is something much more otherworldly.  A ghost?  A forgotten dream?  The liner notes are delightful in their own right.

Byron Coll‘s The Taxi Driver is a madcap sprint through the morning of a cabbie, performed in full breakneck slapstick mime.  It’s high-octane, at times maybe even too speedy, but impressive nonetheless – Buster Keaton on speed with a script by Charlie Kaufmann.  There are some really hysterical gags, stemming both from the plot and the mime.  The audience were screaming with laughter in the stands the night I saw this, which was clearly the intention all along.  A real triumph, and a highlight of the season.

Lee-Smith Gibbons‘ Slicing on the Cake is performed entirely in rhyming verse, like one of Roald Dahl’s ghoulish offerings from Revolting Rhymes it’s a cautionary tale with a decidedly gory streak.  Gibbons clearly relishes the role and has done a great job with the props and costumes for the piece which are as trashy as you could possibly hope for.  She keeps the energy and tight vocal delivery up till the very last, and has the audience laughing all the way.
 

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